The Vortex Rifts Mechanoids

Game Background

As part of my Rifts campaign I needed to develop a transferred robot intelligence for a new player character. The robot had to come from a high tech culture and something had to happen that would cause the intelligence/soul of the character to be transferred into the robot. In addition I also wanted to give the players more information on the swarm depicted in the dreams they'd been having - I do not necessarily follow the Palladium timeline and things progress at a pace I dictate, which is why the campaign is now upto January 1st 102 P.A. (as of 22/04/2002). This entailed the character coming from a race that had met the Mechanoids and survived.
So I made up the race (name only at this stage), some background, and had the robot rifted to Earth as the result of a reactor explosion. Thrown into the mix was the sudden reappearance of a Mechanoid Mothership in the system where the robot/character was from. And here I left things

Now at the RPG Club I help run, we've been playing Mechanoids as part of the rota for a few years. The Game is run on a modified Gideon-E scenario from the 1985 print of "The Mechanoids®" (two of us are lucky enough to have copies). At the start of this year (2002) we started another seven week slot of the game, and four weeks in a few ideas started to circulate in my brain. What follows is the intro to what I've called Rifts Mechanoids, but before I get into that, there are a couple of things I need to clear up first.

1) Rifts Mechanoids is not the Mechanoids on Rifts Earth, but I am using the Mechanoids from Rifts Source Book2.

2) Rifts Mechanoids is a mega-damage game, using my revised ratio of 1M.D.C=10S.D.C, my armour rating rules, initiative rules, the optional range combat rules from Rifter11, and a modified version of the new range combat rules introduced by our Mechanoids G.M.

3) All the races are new and humanoid. Magic exists but is equivalent to the level of magic in Beyond The Supernatural. Psionics are uncommon but accepted, as are a subset of the super-powers from Skraypers/Heros Unlimited (2nd Edition). Occasional dimensional visitors are accepted, mainly Atlanteans, Titans, and Rahu-men. Humans are super-rare and dragons are unknown - at least their presence is to 98% of the population. Technology is prevalent, and highly advanced - equal to or above that of the Naruni from Phase World. There is no known connection to the Three Galaxies or Phase World.

And
4) This site will only develop as I run the campaign, so you'll all have to be patient as I don't want to give too much away to the players - who are quite capable of finding this site and reading it!